Firestarter

Version 0.16: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

This weapon is imbued with potent fire magic, and fills those it strikes with inner flame.

the +7 great mace "Firestarter"

+7 great mace

Flaming
rF++
Adds Inner Flame enchantment on strike

Desirability

Unless you're facing foes resistant to fire, Firestarter is an exceptionally powerful weapon, combining a solid and well-enchanted base weapon, a decent brand, an extremely useful defense (any source of rF++ is worth consideration), and one of the most brutal melee crowd-control methods in the game. That being said, its downsides are very significant. Even with rF++, getting caught in a constant stream of explosions will take its toll on your HP, making the weapon best suited for characters with one more source of fire resistance, very high AC, a large HP pool, and a good source of constant HP regeneration (such as Makhleb worship). On top of that, the amount of noise you'll be producing in combat will awaken many nearby monsters, so expect reinforcements to be a constant threat. Also, many of the major sources of fire damage in the game are resistant or immune to fire damage themselves, making the weapon a useful defense against them, but not exactly ideal offensively speaking.

History

Firestarter was added in 0.14.